The Quality of Endurance: Update 6 from Prague

Dear family and friends,

When we last wrote an update, everything was open again: group gatherings were back, masks were no longer mandated (but for the subway), and summer was here. Now we have come full circle. Virus cases have spiked and government regulations have tightened up. The sense of normalcy we seemed to regain over the summer has proved fleeting. The university has gone back online, ballet is closed, kids are now online (they began the school year in person), and small group prayer gatherings are on hold. This feeling of a loss makes it easy to shrink our vision, go through the motions, and fall into anxiety. As uncertainty invades our lives again, we long for the mindset of James 1:

“When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance.”

Now we cling to that endurance.

When we visited the US in June and July a dear friend asked, “Are you disappointed that

this virus hit in the first year of your time there?” Part of me wanted to say yes because of its disruption of our desires and expectations, but in truth that hasn’t been the deeper reality.

Josh with AAU administrators and deans

The pandemic opened the door to more service within the university, to creative projects, and to growth as a family. After a semester leading the task force for virtual instruction, I was asked to be the head course designer for hybrid online/in-person courses, working with 15 faculty members on redesigning their courses. At the end of the summer, a Czech faculty member asked me to join a grant proposal with faculty from the four Visegrad countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary). This past Friday, I presented some research on leadership in the Civil Rights Movement and the Velvet Revolution to a group of faculty members and graduate students from several universities. The focus was on love and reconciliation embodied in those two movements, and the need for it today.

Though we couldn’t see everyone we wanted to, we visited the US for a little over a month in June and July and it was so encouraging to be with family and friends. We found the advice of friends who have been missionaries overseas to be true: coming back after year one for our kids was a healthy dose of friends and old routines. Being reassured that their friends and family would still be there helped our kids return here.

It was both comforting and strange to walk around our old neighborhood, visit neighbors, and go to our favorite places: Ugly Mugs and Sweet 16th bakery. The love and fellowship from our small groups we have been meeting with for almost 15 years gave us a reaffirmation of our mission here in Prague. We are indeed wealthy in our family and friendships and how much our community loves our family. We felt full from our visit as we headed back to start year two.

Once back, our family activities and relationships in Prague picked up again. As we already mentioned, our kids started in person school, had tons of playdates, tried baseball, started ballet classes, and made up the entire children’s ministry at our church. Anna was set to co-lead and host a New to Prague group in our apartment (this is now on pause with the current situation). We were both elected to the St. Clement’s church council and serve as readers and intercessors as well. Anna continues to connect with Czech dancers through her classes and had just started taking a “spiritual formation through dance” class online. Now that we are in lockdown again, Anna teaches an online barre for those dancers through Skype from our living room, if anyone is interested.

Shooting at Terezin, a former Nazi camp outside Prague

One of the things we are learning here is how the love of Christ has shown up in Czech history and culture. I developed a course in June about Czech heroes and dissidents, focusing on 5 people and what students could learn from them. I was struck by the perseverance of Czechs suffering under Nazism and communism and how they clung to truth and human rights. One of the leaders of the Velvet Revolution said "The concept of human rights is exclusively Christian, God created man as his image.” We have also been in contact with a once-underground priest, Tomáš Halík, who has helped us reinterpret the famous atheism of this country. Halík’s perspective is that there is more “something-ism” here than hostile atheism. He defines “something-ism” as: there is something out there higher than me, combined with a reticence about getting too close (which he likens to Zacchaeus’ approach to Jesus). We’ve asked some Czech friends about this and they tend to agree. This insight helps us have a better starting point for approaching our mission here and encouraging a life of faith in those with whom we work and dance.

Our prayer needs:

1. Merciful and grace-filled school at home, patience for Anna as she juggles 3 kids school schedules.

2. Blessings on our marriage: we celebrate 15 years on October 22nd!

3. Our monthly and school financial needs. We are about $500 short of our monthly need and still need monthly donors. We pay $5,000 each quarter for school and are in need of more on-time donors toward the second-half of this year. We have one donor who has initiated a matching donation offer with any new donors who are able to give. We encourage you to take advantage of this amazing generosity.

4. Josh at Anglo-American University: continuing relationships with faculty and students, opportunities to faithfully develop his writing and teaching, and endurance through the sometimes lonely remote work.

5. For protection over our house in Nashville. We’ve had a lot of very unexpected and expensive repairs in the past 2 months: an HVAC, shower and squirrel removal. It has been difficult and stressful to deal with from so far away. Please pray nothing else goes wrong.

6. For a renaissance of personal faith and reconciliation among Czechs here. Josh may have opportunity to encourage Christian PhD students through the Komensky Institute here in Prague and we are finding more and more believers here as we go.

7. For an opportunity for Anna to teach ballet here once things open back up. She is such a gifted teacher and many of her fellow dancers here have recognized this.

8. For closer relationships with our faith community here and creativity in encouraging one another in our relationship with the Lord.

Dear family and friends, we love you and wish you a happy fall. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

The Haydens

Familiar, anyone?